Bee outdid themselves with this article!
The smart money puts 'Dogs back in Big WestConference. ...
http://www.fresnobee.com/columni...2848c.html
8:20 AM Sunday, Jun 5, 2005
By John Branch
The Fresno Bee
"Cal State-Bakersfield students recently voted in favor of a fee increase to help lift the athletic department to Division I status. And the school wants to join the Big West Conference.
Fresno State should ponder getting there first.
After 13 years wandering the vast times zones of the ever-shifting Western Athletic Conference, it's time for Fresno State to consider coming home again.
Back to the Big West.
Think about it. It would save hundreds of thousands of dollars in travel, rekindle long-forgotten rivalries and offer a comparable, sometimes better, level of competition than it's about to face in the new-look WAC.
Fresno State would need a home for its football program.
So it tells the WAC it wants to remain a football-only member.
What -- the WAC is going to say "no" to Fresno State football, which might be the conference's most powerful commodity?
WAC commissioner Karl Benson declined to speculate on the what-ifs of the idea, including the likelihood of the WAC granting Fresno State football-only status. He said such an arrangement would require the approval of conference presidents.
A move to the Big West isn't a novel concept. Hawaii toyed with it a few years ago, temporarily considering playing football as an independent.
Now, for Fresno State, it's an idea worth exploring in detail.
The Big West just lost Utah State and Idaho to the WAC. It's arguable which conference benefits most from that move, which tells you something about the current state of affairs.
The Big West now has eight teams and will add UC-Davis in 2007-08. Adding a 10th team, mostly for scheduling purposes, is likely in the coming years.
Bakersfield wants in.
Fresno State should inquire.
Big West commissioner Dennis Farrell isn't expecting any calls from Fresno. But he'll answer them if they come.
"I certainly wouldn't say, 'Thanks, but no thanks,' " he said.
Fresno State was a founding member of the conference, long known as the Pacific Coast Athletic Association, and was glad to leave to become part of the WAC in 1992.
But today's WAC is just a spread-out version of the old Big West, anyway, with the likes of Utah State, Boise State, Nevada and New Mexico State.
Fresno State might as well align itself with its true rivals in the Big West now that the league is an all-California conference.
One step back could move Fresno State forward.
Fresno State spends about $1.1 million each year sending its non-football sports teams on the road to compete.
Big West schools, without football, spend about half that. And costs are about to go lower, with Utah State and Idaho -- the only air destinations in the league -- dropped from the roster.
Fresno State, meanwhile, budgeted $273,300 for air travel to non-football WAC competitions in 2004-05 -- an expense instantly deleted with a move to the Big West.
The baseball team provides a quick example of the difference between flying and driving. A trip to Louisiana Tech this year was expected to cost $26,340.
A series at Cal State-Fullerton was budgeted at $9,400.
Such savings alone aren't going to rescue a bleeding $22 million department budget.
But finances aren't the sole reason to contemplate a conference change.
Competitively, the Big West generally is comparable to the WAC, and in some cases stronger, especially with Rice, Southern Methodist, Tulsa and Texas-El Paso leaving the WAC for Conference USA this year.
Comparing conference strength is difficult. One way, and not a perfect one, is to use the Director's Cup, which ranks schools by their success in reaching and advancing in national championships.
The average Big West team ranked 114th in 2003-04. The average WAC team ranked 156th.
Fresno State was 100th, behind five Big West teams. That should quiet the Red Wave trash-talkers for a few minutes.
The Big West had two baseball and two softball teams earn berths in this year's NCAA tournaments. The WAC had one of each.
The Big West had six volleyball teams make the NCAA tournament. The WAC had three.
In women's basketball, the Big West had one qualifier and the WAC had two -- but one of them was Rice.
Some Fresno State coaches don't care much if the school changes conferences. Golf, tennis and track, for example, have tenuous ties to the WAC, since they don't have traditional conference schedules.
Others say joining the Big West could help recruiting in California. Some think the WAC offers better national exposure.
All of them want to do what's in the overall best interest of Fresno State.
A key to a conference move, of course, is the lone profit-making sport outside of football: men's basketball.
It's a concern. The WAC is marginally deeper and stronger at the top.
Both conferences had two teams make last season's NCAA Tournament -- Pacific and Utah State for the Big West, Nevada and UTEP for the WAC.
Utah State will help the WAC make up for the loss of UTEP at the top.
The average season-ending Ratings Percentage Index of the nine teams slated to compose the WAC next season is 175.
The average RPI of next year's Big West teams is 191.
"I think this is where we want to be," Fresno State men's basketball coach Steve Cleveland said of the WAC. "Anything less than this, I don't think, is in the best interest of this community and this program."
Farrell, the Big West commissioner, said strengthening the conference's men's basketball programs is a major focus.
"We recognize that basketball is a sport where our reputation is going to be built publicly," he said.
Men's basketball probably is the biggest catch to all this. But it's not enough of a concern to keep Fresno State from at least entertaining the idea of going back to the Big West.
Fresno State long has been a bystander in determining its conference fate. It has spent most of the past seven years moping that the Mountain West left it behind, while hardly dominating the WAC.
The school has a few options. It can keep hanging around the WAC and see where it leads. It can hope the Mountain West will call soon, which it won't, or that the Pac-10 will come courting, which it never will.
Or it can do something different, at least until the next better option comes along.
It can go home again.
Think about it.
The columnist can be reached at
jbranch@fresnobee.com or (559) 441-6217."
